


Colourful Lights

by ethereal_xo



Series: R/S 24 Hour Challenge [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Harry, Bonfire Night, Drabble, Fireworks, Guy Fawkes Night, M/M, Post-First War with Voldemort, R/S 24 Hour Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethereal_xo/pseuds/ethereal_xo
Summary: "The Muggles call it Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes’ Night. It isn’t really something that the wizarding community celebrate, as it is an event that happened after they all went into hiding. Nothing to do with them. But these celebrations are a staple of the British calendar, a reminder of an organisation that tried to overthrow the current head of government and install their own. It is an annual event, and when a wizard finds himself living among the Muggles, then it is something that he sees and partakes in, on occasion.Not tonight though. Not tonight. Tonight is a night of silence and of comfort. It is a night of remembrance - of a different event. A more personal event."Written for the R/S 24 Hour Challenge





	Colourful Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night - 5th November
> 
> include any or all of these words:  
> smoke, soot, burning wood, toffee apples, effigy, treacle (or cinder) toffee, carved turnips, fireworks, Catherine wheels, enchanted punch, ash and embers

Ashy smoke flows lazily up the chimney and out into the night sky, amber light snapping from the glowing warmth of the flames. The floor is hard beneath them, the blanket laid along it only softening the spiky carpet that would have otherwise poked into them. It was cheap, like many things in this place. 

Two empty packs of marshmallows lay discarded on the ground, the wooden sticks used to roast them now cinder in the middle of the pit. The two watch as fireworks burst in rainbows outside. Whistles come after the colours lit up the sky. It is loud, but not wholly unpleasant. They admire the Catherine wheels and the rockets in the sky, and the pinpricks of sparklers they can make out from across the street. The children run around with them in their hands, swishing them around like magic wands that they never had, and never would have. 

The Muggles call it Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes’ Night. It isn’t really something that the wizarding community celebrate, as it is an event that happened after they all went into hiding. Nothing to do with them. But these celebrations are a staple of the British calendar, a reminder of an organisation that tried to overthrow the current head of government and install their own. It is an annual event, and when a wizard finds himself living among the Muggles, then it is something that he sees and partakes in, on occasion. 

Not tonight though. Not tonight. Tonight is a night of silence and of comfort. It is a night of remembrance - of a different event. A more personal event. 

Harry is asleep down the hall, a silencing charm cast on the room to keep the loud bangs of the excitement outside from disturbing his sleep. Two-year-olds don’t seem to appreciate the lack of sleep (but have no problem causing others to lose sleep, Sirius had pointed out on more than one occasion). He needs the sleep, however. He hadn’t slept well on Halloween Night or the nights that followed. Tonight would hopefully be the night he caught up on it.

Though to be quite honest, Remus and Sirius have not slept well the past few nights either. Too many memories. Too many flashes to the year before, the year they lost too many. The year they lost their friends, and Harry lost his parents. The year Peter was shown to be a true rat and sentenced to life in Azkaban. The year that ended the war, and proved to the young couple that their suspicions proved false.

It has taken a long time for them to become close again. They have had to spend more time together than they would have otherwise - they had to, for Harry. In the beginning, the distrust was still there to a certain extent. How could it not be? Too much had happened in the war, too much to move on from just like that.

The friendship has slowly developed again between them, the snark and humour returning without the malice and cutting words that lay behind them before. In the last few months, something more than friendship has emerged between them again, something neither of them have been comfortable voicing yet. But tonight, only days after the anniversary of James and Lily’s deaths, they both realise that this life is the only one they’ve got, and they can’t hide it any longer.

It’s as if they are of one mind. They shift closer, hip against hip. Lips press gently. It is a gentle kiss, with a warm taste of apple and cinnamon from the drink they had shared earlier. It is a kiss long overdue, one that is needed by both, one that says everything that has been left unspoken.

_I’m sorry. I should have trusted you. I need you. I love you._

They’d had such loss, such pain. It still felt so raw. This feels like the moment where they finally let go of a breath held in for too long. They can fall into each other again. They’ve found home.

“Pad? Moo-y?” 

They turn quickly, startled, and see Harry standing in the doorway. His glasses askew and clutching a little owl teddy by the wing in his pudgy hand. The other hand rubs an eye.

“Couldn’t sleep. Can I cuddle with you?”

They nod and cuddle him and kiss him until he is giggling and squirming between them. Harry says the colourful lights through the window woke him. He wonders what they are and if it’s magic. They make him colourful lights of his own, like James used to do, and he giggles some more.

Memories of the past haunt them both. They might always haunt them. It would be tough to face daily life with that grief still lingering, they both knew that.

But they had Harry. And they had each other. That was enough. 

It would have to be.


End file.
